The North Koreans inform the BBC that they are being sent to work “like slaves” in Russia

The BBC learned that thousands of North Koreans are being sent to work in slave -like conditions in Russia to fill a significant shortage of employment that has been exacerbated by Russia’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine.

Moscow has repeatedly turned into Pyongyang to help it fight war, using its missiles, artillery shells and soldiers.

Now, with many men in Russia either they were killed or the fighting – or fled the country – told the South Korean intelligence officials to the BBC that Moscow is increasingly dependent on North Korea workers.

We met six North Korean workers who have fled Russia since the beginning of the war, along with government officials, researchers and those who help save workers.

They detailed how men are subjected to “ancient” working conditions, and how the North Korean authorities tighten their control of workers to prevent them from fleeing.

One of the workers, Jin, BBC, told that when he landed in the Far East of Russia, he was reinforced from the airport to a building site by North Korea security agent, who ordered him not to speak to anyone or look at anything.

“The outside world is our enemy,” the customer told him. He said he was placed directly to work on building a tall residential blocks for more than 18 hours a day.

All the six workers who talked to them described the same days of punishment-waking up at 6 am and forcing them to build tall apartments until 2 am the next morning, with a two-year vacation.

We have changed their names to protect them.

Another construction worker, Tae, who managed to escape from Russia last year. Tai remembers how his hands will take in the morning, unable to open it, and paralysis of the work of the previous day.

“Some people will leave their position to sleep a day, or sleep standing, but the supervisors will find them and strike them. It was as if we were dying,” Chan said.

“The circumstances are really easy,” said Kang Dong One, a professor at the South Korea University who traveled to Russia several times to meet North Korean workers.

“The workers are exposed to very dangerous situations. At night, the lights are turned and work in the dark, with a little safety equipment.”

The fugitives told us that workers are limited to construction sites day and night, as agents from the Ministry of State Security in North Korea watch them. They sleep in the crowded dirty shipping containers, which are errors, or on the floor of incomplete residential blocks, while pulling fabrics over the door frames to try to keep the cold.

One of the workers, who slept, said that he had once fell four meters from his building’s location and “broke” his face, leaving him unable to work. Until then, supervisors have not allowed him to leave the site to visit the hospital.

In the past, tens of thousands of North Koreans in Russia have worked for millions of pounds annually to the North Korean leader, Kim Jong Un, and his system of financial hardship. Then in 2019, the United Nations prevented countries from using these workers in an attempt to cut Kim’s money and prevented from building nuclear weapons, which means that most of them were sent home.

But last year, more than 10,000 workers were sent to Russia, according to South Korea’s intelligence official speaking to the BBC, provided that his identity was not disclosed. They told us that it is expected to reach more this year, as Pyongyang may send more than 50,000 workers.

The official added that the sudden flow means that the North Korean workers “everywhere in Russia.” They said that while most of them work on construction projects on a large scale, others were appointed to clothing factories and IT centers, in violation of the United Nations sanctions that prohibit the use of North Korean workers.

Russian government figures appear More than 13,000 North Koreans entered the country in 2024, an increase of 12 times the previous year. Nearly 8,000 of them entered student visas, but according to the intelligence official and experts, this is a tactic that Russia uses to bypass the UN embargo.

In June, Siri Shwigo, a senior Russian official, Sergei Shoigu, acknowledged for the first time that 5,000 North Koreans would be sent to rebuild Corsak, a Russian region seized by the Ukrainian forces last year, but they have been paid since then.

The South Korean official told us that it is also possible that some North Koreans will be deployed to work on reconstruction projects in the Russian -occupied Ukrainian territory.

“Russia is suffering from a severe shortage of employment at the present time and the North Koreans offer the best solution. They are cheap and work hard and do not face a problem,” said André Lancov, a professor at Kokin University in Seoul and a famous expert in North Korea and Russian relations.

These construction functions abroad are very reassuring in North Korea because they promise to pay better than working at home. Most workers go hoping to escape poverty and be able to buy a house for their family or start a business when they return. The most trusted men are chosen only after examining them accurately, and they should leave their families behind them.

However, the largest part of their profits is sent directly to the North Korean state as “loyalty fees”. The remaining fracture-usually between 100-200 dollars (74 pounds, 149 pounds) per month-a mark is marked. Experts say that workers get this money only when they return to their homes – a modern tactic, as experts say, to prevent them from fleeing.

Once men realize the truth of harsh work and shortage of wages, it can be shattered. Tae said that he was “shy” when he learned that other construction workers from Central Asia were receiving their salaries five times more than a third of the work. “I felt that I was in the Labor Party camp, imprisonment without bars,” he said.

The worker is still disturbing when he remembers how other workers will call them slaves. “You are not men, only the machines that can speak,” you stumbled. At one time, Jin’s director told him that he might receive any money when he returned to North Korea because the state needed it instead. Then he decided to risk his life to escape.

Tae made a decision with defects after watching YouTube videos, which shows the amount of workers’ salaries in South Korea. One night, he mobilized his property in Battan Ben, filling a blanket below his bed sheets to make her look as if he was still asleep, and sneaked from his construction site. He praised a taxi and traveled thousands of kilometers throughout the country to meet a lawyer who helped arrange his trip to Seoul.

In recent years, a few workers have been able to organize their escape using the banned smartphones, which were purchased by providing the small daily allowance they received for cigarettes and alcohol.

In an attempt to prevent this escape, multiple sources told us that the North Korean authorities are now divided into the actual limited freedom of workers.

According to Professor Kang of the University of Dong-A, one of the ways in which the regime tried to control workers during the past year is to subject them to more frequent ideological training and self-criticism sessions, in which they have to declare their loyalty to Kim Jong Un and record their failures.

It has also been cut out of rare opportunities to leave the construction sites. Professor Kang added: “The workers used to go out in groups once a month, but recently these trips have almost decreased to zero,” Professor Kang added.

Kim Song Chul, a Seoul -based activist who helps to save North Korea’s workers from Russia, said these trips were more compromised. “They used to allow them to leave in pairs, but since 2023 they had to travel in groups of five and are intensively monitored.”

In this climate, fewer workers can escape. The South Korean government told us the number of North Koreans who left Russia every year and reaching Seoul since 2022 – from about 20 years to only 10.

Mr. Lancov, an expert in North Korea’s relations, Russia, said the campaign is likely to be ready for many workers who arrive.

“These workers will be the permanent legacy of Kim and Putin’s friendship in wartime,” he said, saying that the workers will continue to reach a long time after the war ended, and the deployment of soldiers and weapons stopped.

Additional reports by Jake Coone and Hoso Lee